280 RACES OF BEES 
CILAPTER IX. 
Races or BEEs. 
545. The honey-bee is not indigenous to America. 
Thomas Jefferson, in his ‘‘ Notes on Virginia,”’ says: 
“ The honey-bee is not a native of our country. Marcgrave 
indeed, mentions a species of honey-bee in Brazil. But this has 
no sting, and is therefore different from the one we have, which 
resembles perfectly that of Europe. The Indians concur with us 
in the tradition that it was brought from Europe; but when and 
by whom, we know not. The bees have generally extended 
themselves into the country, a little in advance of the white set- 
tlers. The Indians therefore call them, the white man’s fly.” 
‘* When John Eliot translated the Scriptures into the language 
of the Aborigines of North America, no words were found ex- 
pressive of the terms wax and honey.” (A.B. J. July 1866.) 
Longfellow, in his ‘‘Song of Hiawatha,”’ in describing 
the advent of the European to the New World, makes his 
Indian warrior say of the bee and the white clover :— 
* Wheresoe’er they move, before them 
Swarms the stinging fly, the Ahmo, 
Swarms the bee, the honey-maker; 
Wheresoe’er they tread, beneath them 
Springs a tlower unknown among us, 
Springs the White Man’s Foot in blossom.” 
546. According to the quotations of the A. B. J., 
common bees were imported into Florida, by the Spaniards 
previous to 1763, for they were first noticed in West 
Florida in that year. They appeared in Kentucky in 1780, 
in New York in 1793, and West of the Mississippi in 1797. 
547. “It is surprising in what countless swarms tle bees have 
overspread the far West within but a moderate number of years, 
